Fred's truck pulled up outside of Pop's, letting Shae get out and walk into the diner to pick up their order. The roles had quickly been reversed, and she hadn't been in Riverdale for longer than a day. She came there to help him, but with the news she'd received, it was her going to him to seek out comfort. And there was nothing better to comfort her than Pop Tate's food.
"The food's going to be ready in a minute, Shae." Pop told her, with a smile on his face even in the late hours of a presumably long day.
"Thanks, Pop."
Looking around the diner, she saw only a sparse scattering of people through the diner. The few of them were sat alone, except two teenagers sat in a booth together. When she glanced at them for a second time, she was able to identify them as Betty and Jughead. After what happened at the Cooper house, her heart dropped seeing them out so late and in conspicuously dark clothing.
"What are you two doing here?" She found herself asking, stood beside their booth with her arms folded over her chest.
"Miss Lucas." Betty said, smiling at her politely. "Me and Jug were just talking about my seizure, he got really worried and we decided we should talk about it in person as soon as possible."
"Just Shae. And I should really tell your parents." Her bottom lip was pulled between her teeth, before deciding against it. "But, if this really was just about that, then I suppose there's no harm in keeping it to myself."
Both teens were visibly relieved, which only made Shae look at them suspiciously. However, she knew how Alice was and how FP would be when he was angry and worried. Alice would easily get him riled up and angrier than he otherwise would be, which she didn't want him taking out on Jughead.
"Shae." Jughead looked at her with some sort of admiration, which she saw as she turned back right after she had prepared to leave the pair to themselves. "Are the stories about you true?"
Shae gave him a smirk. "Everything you've heard is most likely true."
"Even what happened with the ghoulies?" The young serpent asked in awe, to which she nodded proudly.
"What happened with the ghoulies?" Betty asked, looking between the serpents with intrigue clouding any confusion in her expression.
"This was before I joined the serpents." Shae told her, leaning against the side of the booth. "I'd been hanging around the Whyte Wyrm for a while, a few weeks tops. One night when I was walking around the southside, I saw a few young serpents being ambushed by a huge group of ghoulies."
"They said you fought them and helped the serpents escape." Jughead told her, making her laugh.
"Not exactly." She denied. "They saw me and started coming after me. I had the chance to run and escape, but I punched the guy instead. Somehow, I got away with the other serpents. Some of them had broken bones and could barely walk, I was lucky to get away with cuts and bruises."
"Did they make you a serpent for it?" Betty asked, now looking at her with a sliver of the admiration Jughead did.
"Some of them wanted to, some said I proved I was strong enough to do the trials. All the others said I still needed to do the serpent dance, whether I did the trials or not, because I was still a woman." She shook her head, remembering the night with happiness and bitterness. "So, I did all of it. The trials because I wanted to, the dance because misogyny dies hard."
Jughead knew he wouldn't be able to understand why she wanted to do the trials, but he definitely could respect it. In fact, she knew that as well. He was FP's son, after all, and FP had a hard time wrapping his head around it. He'd always said that, had he been a serpent before her or even known what she was going to be doing, he would've made sure she didn't have to.
"Here's your food, Shae." Pop said, handing her the take away bags with the same smile he gave her since she was a child eating there with her parents. "You and Fred enjoy."
"Always do." She gave the old man a sweet smile and straightened up, preparing to leave the Chock'lit Shoppe.
"You're staying with Mr Andrews?" Jughead asked, in a tone she couldn't place. "Dad thought you were staying at the five seasons after you didn't come to the trailer. I guess he assumed you would be staying with us."
"Well, you can tell him I'm at Fred's and I'm just fine staying there." She told him, in a cold tone that sounded harsher than she wanted since she was addressing Jughead and not FP directly.
The next morning, Shae woke up in Fred's bed with no recollection of how she got there. The last thing she remembered was lying down on the couch, which apparently didn't sit well with her friend. He did this when they were teenagers, waiting until she fell asleep to move her into his bed because she wouldn't have accepted it if she was awake.
"Seriously Fred, I thought you would've grown out of this act by now." She said when she went downstairs, seeing Fred in the kitchen in his pyjamas.
"Then I just don't learn." Fred told her with a smile, handing her a plate of food. "I need to get ready for work."
"You didn't need to make me breakfast, I could've done it myself. I do remember where everything is." She objected, fighting back the upwards twitching of the mouth's corner.
"And have you burn the house down? I don't think so." He punctuated the sentence with a laugh, walking quickly out of the room so as to not be pelted with toast and bacon.
It was like they were teenagers again, messing about without a care in the world. In fairness, they didn't when they were laughing together and not thinking of everything going wrong in Riverdale. It gave her some comfort to know that she and Fred were still so close, even after not seeing each other for so long. At least things were getting better with him, even though it was getting worse with Alice and FP.
After finishing her breakfast, Shae remembered about her bag she'd stowed in her bike. After all, she was still wearing the same clothes as yesterday. She almost sprinted to her bike and back again, this time with her bag, trying her best to avoid seeing Alice. Knowing her for years, Shae knew Alice would start apologising profusely. And she would be, until she did the next thing or got angry at her.
"That bag have different clothes in it?" Fred asked, raising his eyebrows jokingly.
"Yeah, actually." Shae retorted. "Get to work."
"Don't try to cook anything." Fred told her, getting halfway out the door when she started to push the door closed behind him.
Being back in Riverdale, Shae realised how much she had changed while being away. She looked into the same mirror she once had as a teenager, wearing another dark, form fitting outfit. It was when she looked at her eyes and face that she saw her younger self: the girl who hid behind baggy clothes that she stole from her friends, who wanted to pretend she didn't have the figure she did because who would notice it next to Alice?
It was the serpents who brought out this side of her. She became proud of herself, learning to use her baggy clothes for comfort rather than to hide. She didn't have anything to hide anymore, that was her and she wanted people to see who became after finding her real home and real family. And, with no job to go to and nothing to do, those were the people she found herself amongst.
"You learnt your lesson now?" Shae teased a younger serpent, who laid down his pool cue and raised his hands up in surrender. "I may not be the serpent queen anymore, but I'm the queen of this pool table."
"Then long live the queen." He grinned, taking a shot.
The Whyte Wyrm had filled more while she had been there, especially after the youngest serpents, still in high school, had finished school for the day and arrived to unwind after a day at Riverdale High. Yes, she also knew about the serpents' move after Southside High closed. It was one of the strange things she couldn't imagine happening, since that was where the young serpents had a place of their own. But at least nobody could take The Wyrm. With that in mind, she went to the bar for another drink.
"What can I get you?" A young girl with dark skin and pink hair asked, tying her apron around her waist as she presumably started her shift.
"Rum and coke."
As soon as the words left her lips, the teenager turned around to get started. She mixed the drink in what felt like a matter of seconds, turning around again to look at her face properly. The young girl narrowed her eyes slightly in concentration, before her expression relaxed in relaxation.
"You're Shae Lucas." She concluded, making the woman open her mouth in confusion but didn't get a chance to say anything. "Toni Topaz, I'm a friend of Jughead's. He was telling all the serpents he met you, might even start a fan club."
With that, Toni left Shae with a smile on her face as she went to serve another customer. However, her smile dropped when a familiar face sat next to her. Even though FP was officially retired, that didn't stop him from being able to enter the bar. In fact, she would've been stupid to think he wouldn't come in at least once in a while.
"Jughead said you stayed at Fred's last night. If you needed a place to stay, you could've stayed with me." FP told her with a smile.
"You told me about Jason Blossom." She said with a sigh, looking up at him with a blank face. "Why didn't you tell me you slept with Alice?"
FP's smile faltered, mouth opening and closing as he tried to find the words to defend himself. "I didn't think it was a big deal, we'd broken up, it was one night, and it was years ago."
"One week." She told him monotonously. "We'd been broken up for one week, that one night led to a child – your child who's dead now. You can't tell me you didn't know about that yesterday, when we were getting everything out into the open."
He just looked at her, trying to say something but he knew nothing would be good enough. Shae raised an eyebrow at him expectantly, waiting for him to come up with something. But he just looked at fire blazed in her eyes, before walking away from him and out of the bar. And he couldn't go after her, because he had nothing to say, nothing to make her stay. He hid something so big, did something he shouldn't have in a half-hearted to get over his sadness while she was probably being comforted by Fred with thoughts of getting back together.
So, FP sat inside the bar, prepared to drink away his sadness again, for losing one of the few people who mattered again. And outside, Shae hurriedly tucked her phone away and drove back to Fred's house after receiving the call she dreaded. A call that FP would soon receive that would quickly sober him and bring the ex-couple back into the same room.
"We made a vow in high school." Hermione said, addressing all the adults: friends and enemies alike. "Now that the scout is back safe and sound, we can only assume he'll start talking. Whatever he says may lead back to us. To the secret that they buried all those years ago."
"Why are you bringing this up now?" Fred questioned from where he was stood beside Shae.
"This hasn't been made public, but," Hermione hesitated. "Dilton Doiley and Ben Button were found in the woods with blue lips. Dilton is dead, Ben is in a coma."
"You keep Sheriff Minetta on a short leash, why haven't you called in to make this go away." Sierra McCoy clipped, hiding her fear with her harsh tone.
"I would like to but Jughead found the body, that's the main concern." Hermione said, looking to FP and Alice stood behind his chair.
"We've talking to Jughead and Betty, we tried to make them stop." Alice told her.
"You know our kids, they won't listen." FP said in a deep voice.
"We made a pact never to revisit that night." Tom said, looking around at everyone in the room. "We said we wouldn't mention it, we wouldn't even think about it. My vote is to stick to that."
"Unfortunately, we may not have that luxury." Hermione told him sternly. "Not if it's happening again, not if it's our children. All of our children are in danger."
"Not all." Penelope said, looking at Shae.
"They may not be my children, I may not have met all of them, but I care about the ones I have met." Shae defended. "I want to protect them, whatever it might cost me. Even if that means my life."